The turnaround in Australia: some first observations from the 1991 census

Abstract

It is important to undertake separate analysis of the non‐metropolitan population. The aim of this paper is to utilise recently released census results to examine patterns of population change in non‐metropolitan Australia during the 1986–91 period, focusing particularly upon the net migration component of that change. The paper presents an overview of recent trends in population change in non‐metropolitan areas and then moves to an analysis of net migration patterns in non‐metropolitan local government areas during the late 1980s using a Life Table Survival Ratio technique to estimate net migration. It appears that the trends observed in the early 1980s have continued into the late 1980s and early 1990s, and that overall the ‘turnaround’ is slowing down and becoming more diversified, more complex, and much less predictable in the 1990s.